Toward the Sunny Shore: A Guide to Living Joyfully by Norbert F. Čapek—Chapter 3: Threshold of Consciousness

To read about why I’ve begun this ongoing translation project, please lick THIS link. Corrections/alternative suggestions to the translated text from Czech readers/speakers will be most welcomed. Either add them in the comments section below or be in touch with me via the contact form on this blog. I need all the help I can get!

Please remember that this book was written between 1925-1939 when attitudes and ideas about all kinds of things were different to many of those we hold today. Also, recall that our own understandings of how the human body and mind works has undergone many changes since 1939. Consequently, although I have little doubt that we will find in Čapek’s book much that is useful, highly relevant and positive, we’ll also likely find a few things that jar with us, along with some things that seem simply to be wrong. But this is, of course, always the case whenever we are exploring a text written in a different age to our own.

With that caveat made, I hope you enjoy and find interesting and helpful the first-draft translations that appear here, and in subsequent posts over the coming months.

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Source Czech language PDF for this post can be found here.

Norbert F. Čapek
K slunnému brehu
Prúvodce do radostného Zivota

Toward the Sunny Shore

A Guide to Living Joyfully

Nakladatel Edv. Fastr, Praha (1939)

 

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3 — Threshold of Consciousness

Levels and causes of sensitivity.  – The scope of unnoticed perceptions. – What is the mental threshold? – The possibility of lowering and raising it. – What sensitivity depends on. – Morbid states in seemingly healthy individuals. – Complexes from childhood. – The effects of buried experiences. – What a change in thinking has caused. – The guarded and unguarded threshold of consciousness and emotions.

Some people are as sensitive as the hairspring in a watch; at the slightest touch, every nerve in their body trembles. Others are so emotionally hardened that they will whistle their tune even while dynamite is blasting rocks apart.

Since sensitivity manifests in various forms, it is important to distinguish between unhealthy hypersensitivity to things that others ignore and healthy emotions. Many people, however, believe their sensitivity is innate or that it is an illness from which they cannot escape unless someone discovers an epoch-making discovery of the most peculiar illness, which, starting with Saul, used to afflict only kings.

Sensitivity should not exceed certain limits if it is to be beneficial rather than harmful. We receive an enormous number of impressions from the world around us, and in the depths of our subconscious, so many things are happening that it is difficult to form a clear picture of it all.

It seems there are no limits to the impressions our subconscious can perceive, accept, and process without our awareness. On the other hand, our conscious mind can only handle a certain number of impressions; if this limit is exceeded, disturbances arise in the form of various kinds of nervousness and bad moods.

Just imagine what happens every five minutes as we walk down the street. Hundreds of images are constantly reflected on the retinas of our eyes. Our eyes see every line in the faces of passers-by, every detail of their clothing, ornaments on buildings, hanging signs, items displayed in windows, the paving of the street, tracks and vehicles, and dozens of other things. Our ears hear every sound within the range of audibility: every ring and horn, people’s voices, their footsteps, and the rustling of their clothes. The skin senses whether it is cold or warm, and the nose catches an abundance of various smells. A part of the subconscious feels the touch of the street’s pavement beneath the heels of our shoes, the touch of clothes on the body, the movement and position of the entire body, and I can barely recall the endless stream of messages and impressions from all the organs of the body and all psychological influences.

From these perceptions, only a tiny fraction captures our attention. What interests us and imposes itself on us is what, in the ordinary sense of the word, we see, hear, and perceive. Everything else sinks into the subconscious without arousing particular attention. Few people realize that nothing happens in their organism without them subconsciously knowing about it. The work of the subconscious is especially evident in a sleepwalker when they can walk across rooftops without their ordinary consciousness knowing about it; but they may then fall if that consciousness is suddenly awakened.

The subconscious intelligence must know how much light is entering the eyes so that it can constrict or dilate the pupils or, if necessary, signal the eyelids to close. It must know how much blood flows to the stomach, the head, or the legs. If the skin is irritated by cold from the outside, it sends more blood from within the body to the surface. If a hand is exerting itself, it sends more blood to the hand’s muscles. It must know how much oxygenated air is entering the lungs and whether toxins are being excreted and exhaled.

Everything generally happens beneath the surface so that the conscious mind is not burdened.

We now come to a closer description of the threshold of consciousness, which is particularly important in this context. Fully understanding what the threshold of consciousness is and how it can be lowered or raised is one of the key principles of the art of living and mastery over moods.

In his work on the foundations of normal and abnormal psychology, Boris Sidis refers to the degree to which a cell is sensitive and reacts to certain stimuli as the threshold of irritation or the threshold of stimulation. Just as the wind must reach a certain strength to drive rain over a raised threshold into the house, similarly, a sensation must have sufficient intensity to overcome the barrier at the threshold of consciousness.

This mental threshold does not always have the same height. It is raised or lowered by mental automatisms, which depend on the content of our consciousness and on the importance we assign to certain matters. While we cannot control the intensity of the stimulus, the interest we assign to something lies within the realm of free choice.

Everyone can choose which thoughts and physical stimuli they want to allow in or which they want to push away from the threshold of consciousness. It is possible to raise the threshold of consciousness, to build a dam of indifference to certain excitations, to close the mental gates, and draw the curtains. Or the threshold of consciousness can be lowered to the point where even the slightest skin itch feels like being pricked by a pin.

There are thresholds of consciousness that change frequently and easily. If someone is hungry and finds food tasty, their threshold of consciousness is significantly lowered. However, if a person has eaten their fill, the food must be very appealing to attract their attention, as the threshold of consciousness at such a time is very high. A farmer is interested in farming, so anything related to their passion easily crosses the threshold of their consciousness. A fashionable lady has a very low threshold of consciousness for anything related to fashion. A profit-seeker latches onto anything that could bring some gain. An ambitious person is inclined to pay attention to praise about their good qualities. In other words, our character partly determines how something affects us, whether it interests us or not.

Anyone who has become accustomed to paying excessive attention to the processes within their body will inevitably begin to exaggerate their physical sensations to the point where a minor signal from the subconscious appears as an alarming symptom. Someone who has made a habit of focusing intently to detect every suspicious creak in their physical system will often be frightened by some noise or imagined danger. If someone allows an entire stream of specific stimuli to overflow the threshold of their consciousness, they should not be surprised if they start to drown in bad moods.

If, in addition, they consult several doctors, some less conscientious than is customary, they may end up like the lady to whom each doctor said something different, until she ultimately believed that she had sciatica, a heart defect, neurasthenia, vascular hardening, and that she might go insane.

Or they might find themselves in the position of a healthy, rosy-cheeked, and mentally agile gentleman in a highly responsible role, who assured me that he suffered from spinal cord atrophy, that something was wrong with his heart, that he was in danger of losing his mind, and most troublingly, that he was incapable of getting married. He believed all of this sincerely, and I am certain that if he had continued to believe it for another year, all these feared conditions would have manifested gradually through the power of autosuggestion.

It is clear that sensitivity is largely subject to our personal choices. We therefore ask: what determines this choice? The cause of hypersensitivity is often an abnormal craving for attention. A person feels deficient in some respect, which bothers them. Perhaps they suppress this dissatisfaction. As a result, various impulses arise to do something that attracts attention, even if the individual is not consciously seeking it. Even so, it may bring a certain kind of satisfaction.

Another cause of hypersensitivity can be a complex from childhood, when a person became accustomed to receiving special attention. It can also stem from a feeling of not being sufficiently loved or noticed. Or, they may have wished to love someone deeply but found no understanding or reciprocity. As a result, they gradually lose interest in everything else around them, redirecting their attention and sensitivity to cultivating some kind of weakness that, by its very nature, attracts attention and necessitates special care.

In this way, many people develop hypersensitivity to external stimuli, or pain, burning, or pricking sensations, whose roots lie beneath the threshold of consciousness.

The way a certain sensitivity or hypersensitivity manifests itself is often random. It is usually based on physical discomfort that was coincidentally associated with something unrelated to it. For example, someone might feel unwell near an open window. Influenced by old superstitions and suggestions, they associate their discomfort with a draft and become increasingly afraid of drafts, to the point where they feel a pricking sensation simply upon noticing that a neighbor has an open window.

Someone else might feel unwell while eating. Their attention is drawn to a piece of food, and immediately a suggestion arises, causing nausea whenever they see that type of food. Some people, even from childhood, develop an aversion to certain foods because they were made repulsive to them through suggestive associations with something unpleasant.

A certain young woman experienced her throat tightening and felt as though she were suffocating when singing in her middle registers. The strangest thing, however, was that she sang the much more difficult lower and upper registers with ease and never experienced this unpleasant sensation. Through psychoanalytic investigation, it was found that she came from a family that did not understand her aspirations; when she began learning to sing, she was accompanied by reproaches from home, which caused great sorrow that tightened her throat. And because the same throat muscles that tighten during sorrow are active when singing the middle registers, these muscles began to tighten whenever she tried to sing in that range.

Many painful sensations are rooted in long-buried experiences. Hysterical individuals mostly suffer as a result of these memories.

Whatever it is that causes hypersensitivity, it is still a very unsatisfactory expression of the inner self. It does not make us happier or more important. Through a change in mindset and re-education, a person can find much better and more beautiful ways to express themselves.

There is no need to succumb to weaknesses, bad moods, and feelings that, for whatever reason, have attached themselves to our changeable “self” and lead it in their devil’s dance. There are enough examples of people who have freed themselves from hypersensitivity and suffering. What they could do, anyone can do, provided they resolve to overcome these things. 

A girl who could only eat liquid food was so incapacitated that her two sisters, who worked outside the home, had to care for her like a small child. A mere change in her thinking caused her to eat a full diet, manage the household, and feel ashamed that she had previously let herself be so dependent on others.

A certain doctor, while working on the eighth edition of one of his books, was in such a pitiful state that he wore two layers of woollen underwear for fear of catching cold. He kept cotton in his ears. He felt pain at the touch of clothing, as his skin was so sensitive all over his body. His neck muscles were so weak that he could not hold his head upright. He suffered from constant fatigue and constipation. When his mindset was changed, he rejuvenated by 20 years and laughed at his former ailments.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who are enslaved by their emotions, and those who rule over them. Some leave the threshold of their consciousness unguarded and become prisoners in their own homes; others elevate their consciousness above everyday troubles and annoyances and live in the radiant sunlight of a good mood.